Lady A: Hello everyone and welcome to Guardian Saga: Seeker! This is in no way related to the Phoenix Saga. Also this story will have a linear time stream as opposed to the jumper time stream in Origin. I apologize for those waiting on the next chapter of Phoenix Saga: Origin, but this story was becoming a tad bit demanding. It is set a few months before the events of Christmas Invasion, so only Ten and beyond.
One final thing before we get started, this story is dedicated to JustThatOneYoutubeNerd, for it was through her excitement and assistance that this story came into being. I love you, Arya and thank you!
Now on with the show!
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or anything affiliated with the program. Also I do not own anything I make references to. I only own the insanity that is my OC and the crazy plot line. This Disclaimer will only appear in the first chapter.
Chapter One: Darkness Falls
Beep…beep…beep…beep…beep…beep!
A singular arm reached out from under the dark blue comforter, trying to locate the source of the atrocious noise that dared to interrupt the former sleeper's dreams and silence it into oblivion. The outstretched hand swatted and patted the space where the contraption should have been, only to discover that it clearly wasn't where it was supposed to be.
A distinctly female voice groaned in annoyance as the owner of said voice, one Artimes Blaine, remembered that she had placed the digital alarm clock on the dresser which resided at the other side of the room. It was to prevent her from hitting the snooze bar a half a dozen times, throwing the stupid thing across the room, or in the worst case scenario, using on a hammer on the blasted thing.
The woman whimpered as she poked her head out from under the covers, the sunlight accosting her sleep laden, royal blue eyes. Her crimson hair fell into her face as she sat up, blowing it away in an exaggerated manner as she glared venom soaked daggers at the still beeping alarm clock. What in the world possessed her to make her put the device on the other side of the room in the first place? Oh yeah, it was so she wouldn't be late for her shift at the gas station where she had been working for the last four years as a cashier.
Remembering why she was in this predicament, she so wanted to gut the new manager for being a sadistic, little clotpole and dance on his entrails for assigning her the morning shift. She swore he did that on purpose just so she would snap at him and give him the opportunity to fire her.
She hated mornings with a passion for two very specific reasons. One, she was not a morning person; she slept when she wanted to which just happened to be during daylight hours. The second reason was far more personal. Having to work during the day meant sleeping at night and it stole the precious few hours she had for seeing the stars. She loved star gazing and thinking about distant planets, stars, and galaxies. There were so many different forms of life on this little world and she could just imagine just how many more there was out in space.
It's said that every living thing has impossible wish, a desire that could never be granted no matter how much it was wished for. She was no exception to this statement for she, too, had an impossible wish. All her life, she has wanted one thing…to see the stars, just a little bit closer. She knew it would never happen, but that never stopped her from wishing that it could happen.
The red head sighed heavily and begrudgingly, got out of bed. She walked over to the dresser on the other side of the room and with one final glare; she smacked her hand down on the infernal noise maker, sighing in relief at the silence. Did she mention that she really hated mornings? She picked out her outfit for the day; dark blue jeans, a long sleeved black shirt, black socks, black converse, a dark crimson leather jacket, a navy blue neck tie, and her undergarments. She set the items on her bed before heading to the bathroom.
She couldn't help the small grin on her face when she thought about her tie and converse, two items that were added to her usual attire because of her love for a certain doctor. Her wardrobe had altered quite a bit since she became addicted to a British television series called Doctor Who. She had watched the classic Who with her mother, but had never really gotten into it. The series had been cancelled and off the air for about ten years before returning in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston playing the part of the Ninth Doctor.
She had fallen in love with the series right from the beginning after watching the first episode called Rose. However, she didn't become a Whovian from just that. Oh no, she became slightly obsessed upon the arrival of the Tenth Doctor portrayed by the absolutely gorgeous David Tennant. It was Ten that had inspired her nightly ritual of star gazing. Don't get her wrong, she loved Matt Smith, though it did take her a bit to get used to him after the loss of David and though, she did not particularly care for Peter Capaldi, it was still the Doctor.
She showered quickly, drying off even faster, and raced to brush her teeth. She wanted to watch Season Two Episode One: Christmas Invasion before going into work. Ten was the only one that could calm her down and not murder her new boss. It was also the episode that made her fall head over heels in love with a fictional character. When you have a handsome alien who can travel through all of time and space in a bigger on the inside blue box and fighting atop a spaceship with a sword in order to save the Earth…yeah, she was a goner.
She finished up in the bathroom and went back to her bedroom. She threw on her clothes with a speed that belied her quick changing expertise. She grabbed her beige messenger bag and tossed the strap over her head, the bag resting on her left hip. She picked up a small, thin leather wallet containing a blank, rectangular card inside. She had bought it at a Doctor Who convention and it was meant to be the Doctor's infamous psychic paper. She slipped it into the right hand pocket of her jeans.
She then walked over to the dresser and opened a medium sized wooden jewelry box. It had Gallifreyan symbols carved into the sides and on the top. Inside the box was her pride and joy, a custom made, hand crafted by her, sonic screwdriver. It was similar in design to Ten's, but it was slightly larger and was a sleek metallic black color as opposed to silver. Instead of the light blue tip, hers had a royal blue tip that matched her eyes. She had spent hours at the Build-Your-Own-Sonic workshop in order to complete it with a satisfactory result. It had the red setting and dampers like River's sonic, but it also had a boosted power supply so she wouldn't have to change the batteries all the time.
The thing that made her the most happy was that she had fitted her sonic screwdriver with a psychic interface, more commonly known to the Whovian world as the Point and Think feature. It was a feature only found with Eleven's sonic but not with Ten's, but she couldn't go without it. She slipped the tube like device into her inner left jacket pocket, a huge grin adorning her face as she ran from the room.
She raced into the living room, grabbing the remote control along the way, and plopped onto the couch with a laugh. She may have only been a cashier but she had made damn certain to save up enough money to buy the complete Doctor Who series, including the Classic Who. She really didn't want to clog up her DVR with nothing but episodes. She clicked play and settled into a reclined position on her couch, smiling softly when David came barreling out of the Tardis still dressed in the Ninth's clothes.
Artimes mentally berated herself for giving in, yet again, to her inner fan girl. She ended up re-watching the sword fight scene twice and the wardrobe scene three times, still a little miffed that no one had been waiting for the Doctor after he was finished changing. She was now running incredibly late for work and was rushing down the street like a mad woman. She didn't make enough in wages to afford a car and the subsequent insurance which left her with only one option, running. You couldn't ride a bicycle in this town because people were constantly milling about, making it impossible to get any speed for it to actually be an effective means of travel. The fare for a taxi was simply ridiculous because of the wait times on the road.
She lived in Northern Florida, close to Orlando, while her family lived in Mid Florida, on the other side of Tampa so she couldn't exactly bum a ride from any of her relatives. She probably wouldn't have even if they lived closer because her family thought her to be useless and worthless. It had been the reason why she had moved out, more like tossed out by her folks. Didn't help matters that she had failed out of college three times, so they really thought was nothing.
Her brother, Trinity, hadn't even made it out of high school, though he did get a GED, and she actually graduated. Not like anyone cared in the first place. Her mother had only been there because the red head needed a ride to school. He was currently living up in the Northeast in the state of New York, along with his wife and two sons. He barely remembered that had a younger sister that was seven years his junior. No one seemed to care that she was twenty five year old white female who was horrifically single, was living entirely on her own, and was currently friendless. All her friends had moved on and left her behind for bigger and brighter things.
She had long since gotten used to being abandoned and her loneliness was only made bearable by her love for Doctor Who, a story that chronicled the adventures of the last Timelord in existence, someone who knew how it felt to be completely and utterly alone. The Doctor was the only man in the universe that would understand how she felt…too bad he was a fictional character and she, a real life person. She really wished the Doctor was real, but at the same time, the monsters would be real too. She smiled slightly, remembering what Reinette had said in The Girl in the Fireplace: 'One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.'
Though she was alone, the crimson haired woman held true to the promise the Doctor made when he had chosen his name, 'Never cruel nor cowardly. Never give up, never give in.' The Doctor never gave up and neither would she. Her life may have been incredibly boring and a brilliant example of absolutely ordinary, but it was her life and she made the most of what she had. She lived her life like every day was an adventure, hence the absurd amount of running she does day after day…she simply never knew what she might find and maybe something truly amazing and impossible might happen.
She cut down an alley to avoid the massive amount of people that swarmed the shopping district at this God forsaken hour. Was everyone in this city early birds and sun worshipers? What happen to all the night owls and late night partiers? She kept running until something in her peripheral vision caught her attention, forcing her to slow down. She turned back around and walked back in the direction she had just come from. She looked around trying to find the odd anomaly that called to her curiosity and interrupted her mad dash to work.
Her royal blue eyes landed on a brick wall, but more importantly, the crack that was in said wall. She stared at it, not really believing what she was seeing. It was same shape, the exact same shape, but how was that possible? How could the crack in little Amelia's bedroom wall exist here in a brick wall in real life? It just wasn't possible. Her mind told her to walk away and forget about it, considering she was already late for work, but her body refused to budge, her feet rooted to the ground. Her instincts were telling her to move closer, to examine and study it.
Artimes was known for her intense curiosity and it certainly got her into trouble a time or two. She was having one hell of a mental debate inside her head, but as always, her curiosity won out over her logic. She stepped closer to it and her inner fan girl was screaming at her to touch it. She lifted her right hand slowly as she inched closer and closer to the impossible crack, an entranced expression on her face.
Her fingers touched the crack and she held her breath a moment. After a few seconds, she let out a sigh of disappointment. Nothing had happened; it was just a simple crack in an ordinary wall. Her hand fell limply to her side, her eyes sad and dejected. Nothing amazing ever happened to her and why would it? She was nothing; just another insignificant, little ape blundering about on this tiny, little world. She turned around and took a few steps away from it. She blinked away the tears that tried to form because of her idiocy and was about to leave when she heard a loud ripping sound coming from behind her.
She turned slowly back towards the wall and her eyes widened to the shape of saucers and her mouth dropped open in shock. The crack wasn't a crack anymore…it was glowing in a white light and actually opening. She shielded her eyes as the light became brighter. The wind picked up around her and the sound of it rushing past her ears made it sound like something was howling.
She began to panic as her feet started sliding forward, the pull from the now fully opened crack dragging her closer. Her mind jumped into overdrive as she remembered what happened to Rory on the show. If she came into contact with that white light then she would be erased from time, never having existed in the first place. Her own personal time stream would be unwritten and she would be gone forever. She tried to fight against the pulling but the suction grew stronger. Suddenly, the light vanished and she was pitched forward into the crack.
Darkness…she was surrounded by darkness, a darkness that went on forever. There was no light; not a flicker, a glimmer, or a glow. She couldn't even see herself. There was no sound either…just silence. The silence was deafening and she briefly missed her stupid, irritating alarm clock. To say she was scared was a major understatement, she was completely petrified. She didn't know where she was. How long had she had been there? It felt like forever but at the same time, it felt like she had only just arrived. No light, no sound, no time…just darkness, permanent darkness and the never ending and all consuming silence.
"I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am." She said over and over again, her mind beginning to buckle under the strain.
She curled into herself, her hands clutching her head as she rocked.
"I don't know where I am. I don't where I am." She repeated slowly being driven mad.
She was lost…so very, very lost…lost in the darkness. The silence was clawing at her mind; ripping apart her sanity, carving out her individuality, raping her very soul. She didn't know where she was. She just wanted to go home. The weight of the darkness pressed in on her, the silence forcing her soul to the very edge. She was at the brink, a breath would send her into oblivion, but right as her soul was about to shatter, ten words echoed through her being. Ten words that possessed a strength like no other.
'Never cruel nor cowardly. Never give up, never give in.'
Every fiber of her being screamed as her very essence, everything that made her who she was, pushed the darkness away and banished the silence. She fought with everything she had and unknown to her, something had felt the purity of her being and resonated with it. A silver light appeared, its sudden appearance blinding her, and it collided with her body, completely engulfing her in a soft, silver glow. Every nerve felt like it had been struck with massive jolt of electricity, but it wasn't painful; it was warm, bright, and strong. The light buried itself deep within her soul, repairing the damage that had been done and protecting her from such the hellish place she resided in.
The glow faded and she was once again enshrouded in darkness and the silence was still ever present, but now…now she was waiting. Waiting for what or for whom, she did not know, but she knew something was coming and that something would save her from the never ending darkness and dispel the silence that had raped her sanity.
Soon…so very, very soon.
Lady A: Tada! Chapter One: Darkness Falls of the Guardian Saga: Seeker is complete! Crazy right! Oh, I know it was completely mental and that was probably a horrible place to end the chapter but in my defense, this chapter is over three thousand words which is pretty damn good for me since I have been doing mostly stuff that is two thousand words and under. Leave tons and tons of reviews and be on the lookout for Chapter Two: Into the Light which will be coming very, very soon and thanks again to my beloved Arya for convincing me to post this sooner rather than later! Stay tuned!
